ISS - Expedition 69 Mission patch.
May 8, 2023
Four Expedition 69 crew members are relaxing today following Saturday’s relocation of a U.S. crew ship. At the same time, three cosmonauts are gearing up for another spacewalk to outfit a science module on the International Space Station.
Image above: The four crewmates who flew to the station aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour are (from left) Sultan Alneyadi, Woody Hoburg, Stephen Bowen, and Andrey Fedyaev. Image Credit: NASA.
Sunday and Monday were off-duty days for flight engineers Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, both from NASA, Sultan Alneyadi from UAE (United Arab Emirates, and Andrey Fedyaev from Roscosmos. The four crewmates cleared their schedules both days taking time out for personal activities, light cleaning duties, and exercise.
The foursome spent Saturday supporting the relocation of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour from the Harmony module’s space-facing port to Harmony’s forward port. The automated undocking and redocking maneuver lasted just 37 minutes while the undocking preparations and the post-docking configuration activities took up the majority of the crew’s time. This opens up Harmony’s top port for the arrival of the upcoming SpaceX Dragon cargo mission carrying the station’s newest roll-out solar arrays.
Image above: A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is seen atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for SpaceX’s 27th commercial resupply services launch to the International Space Station for NASA. Image Credit: SpaceX.
NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio also had Sunday and Monday off following his assistance with the Dragon relocation activities. Rubio worked Saturday configuring tools and software, opening and closing the station hatch, and monitoring Endeavour during its ride to a different Harmony port.
The year’s sixth spacewalk is planned for 11:55 a.m. EDT on Friday to continue outfitting the Roscosmos segment of the orbital outpost. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin will once again exit the Poisk airlock and maneuver to the Nauka science module for the planned six-hour-plus spacewalk. Once there, the duo will deploy and activate a radiator they installed during a previous spacewalk on April 19. Fedyaev will help the cosmonauts in and out of their Orlan spacesuits and monitor the spacewalking activities.
International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA
NASA, Axiom Space, & SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 5:37 p.m. EDT Sunday, May 21, for launch of Axiom Mission 2 to the International Space Station. NASA & SpaceX also are targeting 12:34 p.m. EDT Saturday, June 3, for launch of the company’s 28th commercial resupply flight. The mission will carry the next pair of IROSAs, roll-out solar arrays, for the space station.
Related article:
Dragon Crew Ship Relocation to New Port
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2023/05/dragon-crew-ship-relocation-to-new-port.html
Related article (NASA):
NASA Invites Media to Next SpaceX Resupply Launch to Space Station
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-media-to-next-spacex-resupply-launch-to-space-station
Related links:
Expedition 69: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition69/index.html
Harmony module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/harmony
Poisk airlock: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/poisk-mini-research-module-2
Nauka multipurpose laboratory module: https://www.roscosmos.ru/tag/nauka/
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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